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Is this a good package for beginner woman...

My girlfriend always wanted to give archery a try..I used to recreationally shoot a long time ago in the back yard but really know nothing about the sport or equipment. After a quick google search I saw the Diamond Razor recommended to be a good beginner bow. My GF is fairly strong, about 5'6" 160lbs. Looked on Ebay and found this and want to know if this is a good setup/deal or if I should look elsewhere:

That is a great bow. My sister in law has the same bow, and it is a real shooter, however the accessories leave a lot to be desired.
Personally, I think you are always better off buying a bare bow and equipping it with the accessories you want.
My sis in law bought the package deal, and within a month she had upgraded the sight and quiver.

My wife shoots the Edge, not the Razor edge. Either would be great with the Razor having more adjustment for the future. She stated at 29lbs and now shoots 42lbs. She has been shooting now for 3 years. In her first year she got 28th in the states, I thought that was just not to bad for her first tourney. But I think she will like the bow. Not to heavy in weight to hold, easy to draw, lots of adjustment. Smoth to shoot and really easy to tuen.

Thanks for everyones responses. As far as the accessories on this package one of the things that drew me to it was I thought they weren't using "cheap" accessories like some of the other packages. They sell just the bow itself for $270 (same seller on ebay) maybe thats the better way to go? I just didn't want to bother with buying the extra's seperately to be honest...

If she is right eye dominate and right handed she will need a right handed bow. She may or may not be right handed, but if she is left eye dominate she will need a left handed bow. My daughter is right handed but she shoots a left handed bow because she is left eye dominate.

Thanks for everyones responses. As far as the accessories on this package one of the things that drew me to it was I thought they weren't using "cheap" accessories like some of the other packages. They sell just the bow itself for $270 (same seller on ebay) maybe thats the better way to go? I just didn't want to bother with buying the extra's seperately to be honest...

Look into a 2011 Bowtech Heartbreaker package. About the only thing I would change off of it is the rest.

If she is right eye dominate and right handed she will need a right handed bow. She may or may not be right handed, but if she is left eye dominate she will need a left handed bow. My daughter is right handed but she shoots a left handed bow because she is left eye dominate.

Stubby explained it much better than I did.

If she is righthanded (and right eye dominant), might want to see if she likes the Bear Apprentice bow. It is another great choice for female archers. the draw range is from 20-50#, and DL is adjustable from 14-27", all the adjustments can be done right at home with a set of Allen keys.

It is lighter to hold than Razor Edge (every ounce matters for a beginner, and this has nothing to do with draw weight of a bow),
it is easier to tune than the Razor Edge,
its draw range of 20-50lb crosses the magic mark of 30-40lb where most of the youth/lady bows need to change its limbs to get poundage upgrade. Not a cheap or easy procedure and all involve a dealer to ship the bow back to the factory. Whereas, the Apprentice never needs a limb upgrade to be adjusted anywhere from 20lb to 50lb of draw weight.
last, it is one accurate bow.

You can get a Bear Apprentice (in pink camo or Bear's green camo) from Gander Mountain for $279.xx with free shipping, and here is the bonus, if you enter a coupon code, you can save another $25. So for $254, you got a ready to shoot bow (with D-loop, peep sight, Whisker Biscuit rest, hunting quiver).

The above is a highly customized picture of Bear Apprentice bow for target shooting, the score shot with this bow is definitely approaching pro-level bow. My wife and I have already configured 8 similar bows for neighbors, friends, and daughter(s) of members of our archery club.

@LI Archer and Poppie - thanks for the further suggestions, but after the initial responses of "great choice" I had already gone ahead and ordered the initial package I linked above in my first post. (bought it last night). Are the extra's they included decent? Like the arrows? Obviously she doesn't need pro grade stuff yet as she's never even shot a bow in her life but at the same time I paid $100 more then what they sell just the bow for, so I hope I wasn't jipped.

@ Poppie, I am a little confused in your explanation about changing the poundage. From what I am reading the Razors edge adjust from 30-60lbs. It doesn't need a limb change to go between this range, does it? Also, how much harder is it to adjust...can it not be done at home?

@ L.I. Archer, can you recommend a good place to go to shoot? I'm in Suffolk County..

Kbreeze, depending on where you are in Suffolk County, there's an indoor range at Smith Point Archery in Patchogue. If you're closer to the Suffolk/Nassau border, there's the club I belong to - Suffolk Archers in Huntington. If you're further out east, there's Archery Forum in Middle Island.

As for the Razor Edge bow, it's decent. And yes, it's draw weight adjustable on the same bow from 30 to 60 lbs. You just need to get a draw weight scale in order to get the draw weight adjusted correctly. I've set up a lot of these bows and you really have to get the cams timed right at full draw to get a decent backwall.

Thanks - I'll check those out. Oh and I checked out the bowtech heartbreaker but it was too expensive for my blood in terms of a beginner bow...$600 is the price I am seeing for that bow.

By the way, do you know if its legal to shoot in your back yard in Suffolk County. I'm in Mastic and have a 3/4 acre yard and woods are behind me and was thinking of getting some hay bails and just shooting right out back but I don't want to be arrested!

PS - what is backwall? Sounds like its best if I take it to a pro for adjustment if needed. Not sure what lbs I should tell them to set it at to start?

Backwall is when you come to full draw and it comes to a dead stop, or not. Cams that are timed will come to a nice solid stop. If there is any squishiness in the backwall, that's an indication that the cams are out of time and need to be corrected.

A good release would be a Winn Free Flight, which will make it feel like you're pulling 5 to 10 less pounds on the bow than normal. The only drawbacks to this release is that you won't be able to shoot a loop and it gets in the way when you're trying to grab an arrow. If you want a caliper release, they make kid-sized ones that would work for her.

As for shooting in your backyard, I'm not sure what the discharge-of-firearms laws are in Suffolk County. I know in Nassau County, a bow is considered a firearm and we can't discharge in our backyards.

@LI Archer and Poppie - thanks for the further suggestions, but after the initial responses of "great choice" I had already gone ahead and ordered the initial package I linked above in my first post. (bought it last night). Are the extra's they included decent? Like the arrows? Obviously she doesn't need pro grade stuff yet as she's never even shot a bow in her life but at the same time I paid $100 more then what they sell just the bow for, so I hope I wasn't jipped.

@ Poppie, I am a little confused in your explanation about changing the poundage. From what I am reading the Razors edge adjust from 30-60lbs. It doesn't need a limb change to go between this range, does it? Also, how much harder is it to adjust...can it not be done at home?

@ L.I. Archer, can you recommend a good place to go to shoot? I'm in Suffolk County..

No, if she can already pull 30lb at ease, there is no need for limb changes at all.

But I thought just mentioned that because most beginning female archers, the bow-flex ladies aside, are not comfortable with a 30lb bow to start.

The reason I said that is because me and my daughters have been helping the beginning women archers in our club. And very often you would see husbands (and therefore their wives) come along and thinking the wives can pull a 30lb bow. Well, perhaps they can, but when I am helping the new archer, in so many cases I would see that she can indeed pull the bow, a few times, but not able to aim steadily enough to really have a sense of accomplishment because her arrows are all over the places.

So my immediate advice would be asking that new archer to reduce the the poundage on her bow. Well guess what ? If her bow is already bottoming out on the poundage and yes she can still pull the bow, a few times at 30lb, you just got yourself a new archer who is not happy about the situation because she is having a difficult time to hit what she is aiming at.

Perhaps this is the leisure approach, ie have the new archer to have fun shooting a lighter poundage bow, and when she feels that she can hit the target at will and therefore practices even more, then she will ask the poundage to go up on her own.

But all this comment is water under the bridge, now I just hope she enjoys her new bow and have no problem whatsoever with the 30lb starting weight.

Thanks for the great feed back guys! The seller needs to know what weight and draw length I should set it at. Based on Poppies last post I'm guessing I should set it at 30lbs? What about the draw length? Again, my GF is 5'6" 160lbs and definitely above avg strength...

PS- Poppie, I read somewhere that you can actually reduce the poundage on this bow by 50% somehow, making the range start @ 15lbs...??

My wife is a little shorter than your wife but also very strong for a chick. She is pulling 20lbs right now she just started, so 30lbs might be a little too much for beginning, maybe 25 might be better.

No, if she can already pull 30lb at ease, there is no need for limb changes at all.

But I thought just mentioned that because most beginning female archers, the bow-flex ladies aside, are not comfortable with a 30lb bow to start.

The reason I said that is because me and my daughters have been helping the beginning women archers in our club. And very often you would see husbands (and therefore their wives) come along and thinking the wives can pull a 30lb bow. Well, perhaps they can, but when I am helping the new archer, in so many cases I would see that she can indeed pull the bow, a few times, but not able to aim steadily enough to really have a sense of accomplishment because her arrows are all over the places.

So my immediate advice would be asking that new archer to reduce the the poundage on her bow. Well guess what ? If her bow is already bottoming out on the poundage and yes she can still pull the bow, a few times at 30lb, you just got yourself a new archer who is not happy about the situation because she is having a difficult time to hit what she is aiming at.

Perhaps this is the leisure approach, ie have the new archer to have fun shooting a lighter poundage bow, and when she feels that she can hit the target at will and therefore practices even more, then she will ask the poundage to go up on her own.

But all this comment is water under the bridge, now I just hope she enjoys her new bow and have no problem whatsoever with the 30lb starting weight.

Sorry I did not read the post after mine, so couldn't get back to you in time. Yes, you would logically set the weight to minimum, which would be 30lb to start. And at 5'6", I estimate her draw length to be 25.5" if she anchors at her lips, 24.5" if she anchor at the bottom of her jaw. Assuming that she is shooting with a mechanical release + a D-loop. The beauty of these lady's bows are that she might change her draw length because her form (including her anchor) is still in a flux. In case of Razor's Edge, all you have to do is to grab an Allen Key set and change the DL module's dial on the cams, Diamond even etch the DL on their DL modules for you! Just be sure to change both cams' DL modules, not just one. And make sure you tighten both of the set screws because these are parts of the bow where lots of movements are taking places.

Just in case, and only just in case she can not pull the 30lb at ease, you might be able to reduce the draw weight just a little bit below the spec of 30lb. I would definitely take the bow to a qualified pro-shop (not just any archery store) to have it done if that is the case.

Thanks for the great feed back guys! The seller needs to know what weight and draw length I should set it at. Based on Poppies last post I'm guessing I should set it at 30lbs? What about the draw length? Again, my GF is 5'6" 160lbs and definitely above avg strength...

PS- Poppie, I read somewhere that you can actually reduce the poundage on this bow by 50% somehow, making the range start @ 15lbs...??

Yes, It is special version of limbs which goes from 15-29lb. So technically, per spec., the bow can shoot 15lb to 60lb. What they don't tell you in the fine print is that crossing over to the 30lb draw weight, you need a different set of limbs for the bow.

Exchanging the limbs is a $50-$65 job, you just bring the bow to an authorized Bowtech/Diamond dealer and tell them you would want to have a limb upgrade/downgrade. The catch is, while the bow is on its way to the factory, she has no bow to practice with, and the real hurt in the wallet is when you get the bow back, sometimes you have to re-do everything on the bowstring (ie re-arrange the peep, sometimes re-do the serving, string leeches are in the wrong place, re-locate the D-loop. re-tune the bow because the timing of the limbs/cams might be off, and so on).

So the limbs that it comes with don't need to be changed between the 30-60lb range but if I wanted to go lower then 30lb's it would need to change to the 15-29 limbs, correct? Hopefully she is fine with the 30lbs so I wont have to worry about getting the lighter limbs!

We got the bow yesterday. Its really cool, I like it a lot. Granted I haven't held a bow in my hand in about 25 years and it seems they've come a long way since then! I was also surprised at how small it is. But yeah I think this thing is awesome. I couldnt resist waiting until xmas and gave it to my girlfriend last night. She was VERY excited...nonstop ear to ear smiling. She could pull it back without much trouble and with holding it straight....but guess what she did...about the 5th time she pulled it back when I am trying to show her proper form (or at least what I think is proper) she just lets its go! LOL...off flies a little plastic part which I am not sure what it is or where it goes, but I'll have the shop check it out. I'm like what the heck are you doing!? She's like what?? She couldn't understand why you can't just pull it back and let it go. Even this morning when we woke up she's like I don't understand why I cant just let it go. She is smart, college educated etc, but sometimes she just has no common sense. Perhaps it wasn't the best idea arming her, haha. She'll be fine once she gets training though.